We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.
Arthur Streeton / Australia 1867–1943 / The bathers 1891 / Oil on canvas / 31.2 x 62.6cm / Purchased 1951. Maria Theresa Treweeke Bequest / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art
Arthur StreetonThe bathers 1891
On Display: QAG, Gallery 11
Arthur Streeton made a significant contribution to the way Australia imagines itself. The romance and beauty of his landscapes reflect the vision of Australian art at the turn of the twentieth century and highlight the importance of country in this nation’s experience.
The bathers 1891, depicting boys swimming in a creek, presents a cultural archetype of Australians enjoying nature. Streeton, together with Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Charles Conder, Walter Withers and various artist friends, spent weekends and longer periods camping in locations around Melbourne. It was during one of these trips that this work was painted. The boys, skinny and pale, are turned away from the viewer, not heroically posed like classical figures.1
Endnotes:
1. Angela Goddard, ‘Romanticism and swimming in bush creeks’, Artlines, Autumn 2005, p.14.
Arthur Streeton was born in 1867 near Geelong, Victoria. His family moved to Melbourne, and from 1882 to 1888 Streeton attended evening classes at the National Gallery of Victoria School of Design, where he participated in plein-air painting excursions to Heidelberg.
Streeton joined artists’ camps at Box Hill and Eaglemont in the late 1880s, together with Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin and Charles Conder. In about 1897, he sailed for Europe, spending time in Cairo and Italy before settling in London in 1899.
Streeton took pride in the grandeur of Australian nature, but his English experience led to an unimaginative style, quite different from his early Australian landscapes which are full of vitality, colour and light. In the 1920s, he returned to Melbourne where he lived until his death in 1943.
Discussion Question
1. List five adjectives to describe the qualities of the Australian bush in Streeton’s The bathers. Explain your choices.
2. Identify heroic bathing figures depicted in artworks from other historical and cultural contexts, such as Pablo Picasso’s Les baigneurs (The bathers). In contrast, why do you think Streeton has chosen everyday people as subjects for his painting?
Classroom Activities
Imagine these boys are characters in a story. Create a storyboard illustrating the course of events leading to the arrival of these boys at this place. How will the story develop?